scholarly journals Influence of Microstructure on Mechanical Properties of Bainitic Steels in Railway Applications

Metals ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omid Hajizad ◽  
Ankit Kumar ◽  
Zili Li ◽  
Roumen H. Petrov ◽  
Jilt Sietsma ◽  
...  

Wheel–rail contact creates high stresses in both rails and wheels, which can lead to different damage, such as plastic deformation, wear and rolling contact fatigue (RCF). It is important to use high-quality steels that are resistant to these damages. Mechanical properties and failure of steels are determined by various microstructural features, such as grain size, phase fraction, as well as spatial distribution and morphology of these phases in the microstructure. To quantify the mechanical behavior of bainitic rail steels, uniaxial tensile experiments and hardness measurements were performed. In order to characterize the influence of microstructure on the mechanical behavior, various microscopy techniques, such as light optical microscopy (LOM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), were used. Three bainitic grades industrially known as B360, B1400 plus and Cr-Bainitic together with commonly used R350HT pearlitic grade were studied. Influence of isothermal bainitic heat treatment on the microstructure and mechanical properties of the bainitic grades was investigated and compared with B360, B1400 plus, Cr-Bainitic and R350HT in as-received (AR) condition from the industry. The results show that the carbide-free bainitic steel (B360) after an isothermal heat treatment offers the best mechanical performance among these steels due to a very fine, carbide-free bainitic microstructure consisting of bainitic ferrite and retained austenite laths.

2007 ◽  
Vol 544-545 ◽  
pp. 151-154
Author(s):  
Jae Seong Lee ◽  
Bok Han Song ◽  
H. G. Sung ◽  
S. Y. Kim ◽  
Bo Young Hur

In case of the low carbon chromium steel that have widely been used for the carburized gears or rolling bearings, the austenite grain coarsening may be occasionally occurred during carburizing. To restrain this phenomenon, most of hot forged parts have been given to an isothermal heat treatment or normalizing immediately after hot forging and/or prior to carburizing. Therefore, their production cost includes unexpected additional expenses caused by such a non-value added process. To confirm the possibility of an energy saving, as well as attaining a superior fatigue life, in the production of automotive parts to be carburized, the austenite grain coarsening with the manufacturing process of the microalloyed steel, containing Nb and B as a grain refining elements, was investigated. The heat treatment characteristics and rolling contact fatigue behavior of the carburized specimens with the isothermal heat treatment were also investigated. In spite of omitting the isothermal heat treatment after hot forging, the abnormally coarse austenite grains were not found out in the carburized specimens. However, the rolling contact fatigue life of the carburized specimens, in which the isothermal heat treatment was omitted, was shorter than that of isothermally heat-treated specimens.


Metals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1950
Author(s):  
Byungsue Shin ◽  
Kwangyuk Kim ◽  
Sung Yi ◽  
Sanggyu Choi ◽  
Soongkeun Hyun

In this study, the changes in the microstructure and mechanical properties during isothermal heat treatment of cast steel before and after hot deformation were investigated using medium-carbon steel with low alloy content. The microstructural characteristics of the cast and hot-rolled medium-carbon steel under isothermal heat-treatment conditions were examined using optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy in conjunction with electron backscatter diffraction. The variation in the mechanical properties was evaluated using Rockwell hardness and tensile tests. After maintaining an austenitizing condition at 1200 °C for 30 min, an isothermal heat treatment was performed in the range 350–500 °C, followed by rapid cooling with water. Both the cast steel and hot-rolled steel did not completely transform into bainitic ferrite during isothermal heat treatment. The partially untransformed microstructure was a mixture of martensite and acicular ferrite. At 500 °C, the prior austenite phase changed to Widmanstätten ferrite and pearlite. At 450 °C, bainitic ferrite and cementite were coarsened by the coalescence of ferrite and subsequent diffusive growth. The mechanical properties increased as the isothermal heat-treatment temperature decreased, and the hardness of the cast steel was generally higher than that of the hot-rolled steel. Hardness and strength showed similar trends, and overall mechanical properties tend to decrease as the isothermal heat-treatment temperature increases, but there are slight differences depending on complex factors such as various phase fractions and grain size.


Author(s):  
M. Carraturo ◽  
G. Alaimo ◽  
S. Marconi ◽  
E. Negrello ◽  
E. Sgambitterra ◽  
...  

AbstractAdditive manufacturing (AM), and in particular selective laser melting (SLM) technology, allows to produce structural components made of lattice structures. These kinds of structures have received a lot of research attention over recent years due to their capacity to generate easy-to-manufacture and lightweight components with enhanced mechanical properties. Despite a large amount of work available in the literature, the prediction of the mechanical behavior of lattice structures is still an open issue for researchers. Numerical simulations can help to better understand the mechanical behavior of such a kind of structure without undergoing long and expensive experimental campaigns. In this work, we compare numerical and experimental results of a uniaxial tensile test for stainless steel 316L octet-truss lattice specimen. Numerical simulations are based on both the nominal as-designed geometry and the as-build geometry obtained through the analysis of µ-CT images. We find that the use of the as-build geometry is fundamental for an accurate prediction of the mechanical behavior of lattice structures.


2021 ◽  
pp. 073168442110140
Author(s):  
Hossein Ramezani-Dana ◽  
Moussa Gomina ◽  
Joël Bréard ◽  
Gilles Orange

In this work, we examine the relationships between the microstructure and the mechanical properties of glass fiber–reinforced polyamide 6,6 composite materials ( V f = 54%). These materials made by thermocompression incorporate different grades of high fluidity polyamide-based polymers and two types of quasi-UD glass fiber reinforcement. One is a classic commercial fabric, while the other specially designed and manufactured incorporates weaker tex glass yarns (the spacer) to increase the planar permeability of the preform. The effects of the viscosity of the polymers and their composition on the wettability of the reinforcements were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy observations of the microstructure. The respective influences of the polymers and the spacer on the mechanical performance were determined by uniaxial tensile and compression tests in the directions parallel and transverse to the warp yarns. Not only does the spacer enhance permeability but it also improves physical and mechanical properties: tensile longitudinal Young’s modulus increased from 38.2 GPa to 42.9 GPa (13% growth), tensile strength increased from 618.9 MPa to 697 MPa (3% growth), and decrease in ultimate strain from 1.8% to 1.7% (5% reduction). The correlation of these results with the damage observed post mortem confirms those acquired from analyses of the microstructure of composites and the rheological behaviors of polymers.


2015 ◽  
Vol 651-653 ◽  
pp. 677-682 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anatoliy Popovich ◽  
Vadim Sufiiarov ◽  
Evgenii Borisov ◽  
Igor Polozov

The article presents results of a study of phase composition and microstructure of initial material and samples obtained by selective laser melting of titanium-based alloy, as well as samples after heat treatment. The effect of heat treatment on microstructure and mechanical properties of specimens was shown. It was studied mechanical behavior of manufactured specimens before and after heat treatment at room and elevated temperatures as well. The heat treatment allows obtaining sufficient mechanical properties of material at room and elevated temperatures such as increase in ductility of material. The fractography of samples showed that they feature ductile fracture with brittle elements.


2008 ◽  
Vol 575-578 ◽  
pp. 1461-1466
Author(s):  
Byeong Choon Goo ◽  
Jung Won Seo

Railcar wheels and axles belong to the most critical components in railway vehicles. The service conditions of railway vehicles have been more severe in recent years due to speed-up. Therefore, a more precise evaluation of railcar wheel life and safety has been requested. Wheel/rail contact fatigue and thermal cracks due to braking are two major mechanisms of the railcar wheel failure. One of the main sources influencing on the contact zone failure is residual stress. The residual stress in wheels formed during heat treatment in manufacturing changes in the process of braking. Thus the fatigue life of railcar wheels should be estimated by considering both thermal stress and rolling contact. Also, the effect of residual stress variation due to manufacturing process and braking process should be included in simulating contact fatigue behavior. In this paper, an evaluation procedure for the contact fatigue life of railcar wheels considering the effects of residual stresses due to heat treatment, braking and repeated contact load is proposed. And the cyclic stressstrain history for fatigue analysis is simulated by finite element analysis for the moving contact load.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Del Guercio ◽  
Manuela Galati ◽  
Abdollah Saboori

Abstract Additive Manufacturing processes are considered advanced manufacturing methods. It would be possible to produce complex shape components from a Computer-Aided Design model in a layer-by-layer manner. Lattice structures as one of the complex geometries could attract lots of attention for both medical and industrial applications. In these structures, besides cell size and cell type, the microstructure of lattice structures can play a key role in these structures' mechanical performance. On the other hand, heat treatment has a significant influence on the mechanical properties of the material. Therefore, in this work, the effect of the heat treatments on the microstructure and mechanical behaviour of Ti-6Al-4V lattice structures manufactured by EBM was analyzed. The main mechanical properties were compared with the Ashby and Gibson model. It is very interesting to notice that a more homogeneous failure mode was found for the heat-treated samples. The structures' relative density was the main factor influencing their mechanical performance of the heat-treated samples. It is also found that the heat treatments were able to preserve the stiffness and the compressive strength of the lattice structures. Besides, an increment of both the elongation at failure and the absorbed energy was obtained after the heat treatments. Microstructure analysis of the heat-treated samples confirms the increment of ductility of the heat-treated samples with respect to the as-built one.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Glover ◽  
John G. Speer ◽  
Emmanuel De Moor

The addition of a tempering or austempering step to the double soaking of a 0.14C–7.17Mn (wt pct) steel was investigated in the present contribution. The double soaking heat treatment is a two-step intercritical annealing heat treatment, which generates microstructures of athermal martensite, retained austenite and ferrite when applied to medium manganese steels. Microstructures following double soaking and (aus)tempering contained a combination of retained austenite, athermal or tempered martensite, and blocky or bainitic ferrite. X-ray diffraction, dilatometry and transmission Kikuchi diffraction were utilized to investigate microstructural changes which occurred during tempering or austempering. The resulting mechanical properties were measured using uniaxial tensile testing. The double soaking plus tempering heat treatment was shown to generate an ultimate tensile strength of 1,340 MPa in combination with 28 pct total elongation while the double soaking plus austempering heat treatment resulted in an ultimate tensile strength of 1,675 MPa and total elongation of 22 pct. Overall, both novel heat treatments produced a combination of strength and ductility desired for the third generation of advanced high strength steels.


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